Ap Lit Literary Terms

Front 1

a character or force against which another character struggles

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antagonist

Front 2

a character who grows or progresses to a higher level of understanding in the course of the story

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dynamic character

Front 3

a character who only has 1 or 2 striking qualities; they are usually all good or all bad

Back 3

flat character

Front 4

a character who often displays the inconsistencies and internal conflicts found in most real people

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round character

Front 5

a character who does not change throughout the work, and the reader's knowledge of that character does not grow

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static character

Front 6

A work intended to interest, involve, and amuse the reader or audience; usually ends happily

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comedy

Front 7

a character who contrasts and parallel the main character

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foil

Front 8

close friend of protagonist

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confidant

Front 9

the main character of the story

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protagonist

Front 10

the implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work

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tone

Front 11

the repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words

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alliteration

Front 12

the repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose

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assonance

Front 13

a line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter

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blank verse

Front 14

a pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem

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couplet

Front 15

a type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener

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dramatic monologue

Front 16

a lyric poem that laments the dead

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elegy

Front 17

a long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero; typically chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central values

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epic

Front 18

poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme

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free verse

Front 19

a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling. or an idea

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image

Front 20

language which describes things; creates a picture in the reader's mind

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imagery

Front 21

characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of a feeling; short and emotional

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lyric

Front 22

tells a story

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narrative

Front 23

an 8 line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet

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octave

Front 24

a type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the worse; catastrophe and suffering await many characters, especially the hero

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tragedy

Front 25

a weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the hero

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tragic flaw

Front 26

the time and place of a literary work

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setting

Front 27

a generalization; the central idea, concern, or purpose in a literary work

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theme

Front 28

the voice/ implied speaker of a fictional work

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narrator

Front 29

a storyteller who correctly interprets the story

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reliable

Front 30

a storyteller who misses the point of the events of a story; biased

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unreliable

Front 31

the angle of vision from which a story is narrated

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point of view

Front 32

the narrator is a character or an observer

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first person POV

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the narrator knows or appears to know no more than the reader

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objective POV

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the narrator knows everything about the characters

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omniscient POV

Front 35

the narrator seems to be someone standing outside the story who refers to all the characters by name or as he, she, or they

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third person POV

Front 36

everything is known

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unlimited POV

Front 37

"I" and "we" are used; little information is known

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limited POV

Front 38

the arrangement of materials within a work

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structure

Front 39

the matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in 2 or more words

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rhyme

Front 40

a 6 line unit of verse constituting a stanza or a section of a poem

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sestet

Front 41

a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter

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sonnet

Front 42

uses 3 quatrains; rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg

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English sonnet

Front 43

has an 8 line tanza, followed by a 6 line stanza; has 2 quatrains rhyming abba, abba

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Italian sonnet

Front 44

a division or unit of poem that is repeated in the same form;

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stanza

Front 45

grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue

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syntax

Front 46

using the same pattern of words to show that 2 or more ideas have the same level of importance

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parallel structure

Front 47

the arrangement of 2 or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development

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juxtaposition

Front 48

the return of a word, phrase, stanza form, or effect in any form of literature

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repetition

Front 49

a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make a statement; not expected to receive an answer

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rhetorical question

Front 50

a form of assertion characterized by an exclamation point

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exclamation

Front 51

subject and verb are at the end of the sentence

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periodic sentence

Front 52

subject and verb are in the beginning of the sentence

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loose sentence

Front 53

a sentence shorter than 5 words in length

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simple telegraphic sentence

Front 54

a reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art

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allusion

Front 55

when an absent person is directly addressed

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apostrophe

Front 56

a word which substitutes for another which would be undesirable because it is too direct, blunt, unpleasant, or offensive

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euphemism

Front 57

a figure of speech involving exaggeration

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hyperbole

Front 58

the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe

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onomatopoeia

Front 59

the selection of words in a literary work

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diction

Front 60

the associations called up by a word that go beyond its dictionary meaning

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connotation

Front 61

the dictionary meaning of a word

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denotation

Front 62

the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning

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irony

Front 63

a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to other characters

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dramatic irony

Front 64

opposite of what is expected occurs

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situational irony

Front 65

a character says the opposite of what they mean

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verbal irony

Front 66

reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory

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paradox

Front 67

a literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies

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satire

Front 68

contains two independent clauses joined by a conjunction

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compound sentence

Front 69

has an independent clause joined by one or more dependent clauses

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complex sentence

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commands

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imperative

Front 71

word which a pronoun refers to

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antecedent

Front 72

word which takes the place of a name

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pronoun

Front 73

putting 2 contradictory words together

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oxymoron

Front 74

a narrative poem that tells a story which is written in 4 line stanzas

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ballad

Front 75

a statement which can contain 2 or more meanings

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ambiguity

Front 76

a customary feature of a literary work; ex: use of a chorus in a Greek tragedy or the use of a particular rhyme scheme

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convention

Front 77

style in which writers/speakers mean exactly what their words mean

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literal

Front 78

style in which writers/speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words

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figurative

Front 79

a humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work; sometimes sarcastic, but often playful

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parody

Front 80

narrative prose; imaginary/ made up events

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fiction

Front 81

narrative prose; based on facts and reality; a biography or history

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nonfiction